City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Ethics Codes & Reform April 23, 2010

"Interest" vs. "Benefit"

In my most recent blog post, I pointed out how vague the concept of an "interest" is for most people. I would like to discuss this problem further, because I think it is the cause of much misunderstanding, as well as weaknesses in ethics code drafting.

Ethics codes are essentially conflict of interest codes. But the idea of an "interest," not to mention how they conflict, is not very concrete and, therefore, confusing to many people.

Conflicts of Interest April 22, 2010

Fishing for Conflicts

Update: April 29, 2010 (see below)

The idea of a possible conflict of interest should not be an excuse for a fishing expedition to find relationships between local government legislators and people or contracts they vote on. This appears to be what is happening in Crossville, a town of 9,000 in east-central Tennessee.

Local Government Practice April 21, 2010

Ethical Behavior As a Team Endeavor

It would be easy to say that politics is a team sport, like football, while ethics is an individual sport, like tennis. But this simply isn't true. Both ethical behavior and unethical behavior can be done as a team.

Four years ago, in one of my first and most important blog posts, on ethical failures in leadership, I wrote that politics is a team sport, continuing as follows:

Ethics Commissions & Administration April 20, 2010

Ethics Commission E-Newsletters

Government ethics e-newsletters are a good source of ideas, and something worth considering for your local government's ethics commission or ethics officer. Atlanta's new spring 2010 newsletter, Ethics Matters, is a good example of what such an e-newsletter can do.

Ethics Pledges

Resources & Learning April 20, 2010

Online Course in Planning and Land Use Ethics

Patricia Salkin, director of the Government Law Center at the Albany Law School and author of the Law of the Land blog, which I often refer to, is teaching an online ethics in planning and land use regulation course for Rutgers University's Bloustein Online Continuing Education program.

Conflicts of Interest April 19, 2010

Making a Gray Area Black and White

Gray areas in local government ethics don't necessarily have to be gray areas.

According to an article last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a council member whose brother is a lieutenant in the city jail has been very vocal in opposing a plan to lease the jail to the county in which Atlanta sits. It is possible that the council member's brother would lose his job if the lease were approved.

Here is the relevant language in the city's ethics code:

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play April 18, 2010

A Solution to the Problem of Government Aides Involved in Political Campaigns

Pennsylvanians have, for some time, been entertained with a scandal called Bonusgate, which involves state legislative staff not only being used for campaigns, but getting bonuses, which makes a common practice appear even uglier. The ugliness has recently increased in intensity: defense counsel for two of the legislators is accusing the attorney general (who instituted the criminal actions) of doing the very same thing, without the bonuses. And the attorney general, of a different political party than the great majority of the accused legislators, is running for governor.

April 17, 2010

Florida Local Government Ethics Officials to Cooperate

City Ethics' president and Jacksonville ethics officer, Carla Miller, is taking best practices to a new level in Florida. She is organizing a statewide local government ethics swap meeting, where local government ethics officials will share information and talk about swapping software and programs.

Resources & Learning April 16, 2010

Moral Clarity VIII - Transcending Our Limitations Through Ethics

This is the eighth and last in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008), which is itself inspired by the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. What’s wonderful about Kant’s approach to ethics is that it not only focuses on the role of reason. It also shows how ethics allows us to transcend our ordinary limitations.

Conflicts of Interest April 16, 2010

Officials Soliciting Charitable Contributions from People Doing Business with Local Government

Officials soliciting charitable contributions from those doing business before them is unethical conduct too many ethics codes allow, often expressly. Miami-Dade County has in its ethics code what appears at first to be a very reasonable exception to the definition of a gift:

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